Thursday, May 25, 2017

“Ask not what the role can do for you; ask what you can do for the
role.”

-- Ricardo Montalban

It is hard to think of a 24-year old at a career crossroads, but last
summer Brett Connolly might have found himself standing in one. A sixth-overall
draft pick of the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2010, he steamrolled through his last
year of Canadian juniors, scoring 46 goals for the Prince George Cougars of the
Western Hockey League. Then, he made the leap to the big club the following
year, getting the call in 68 games for the Lightning in which he was 4-11-15.

It seemed to be a decent foundation on which to build a solid career in
Tampa, but his progress came to a crashing halt the following year when he
appeared in just five games for the Lightning and spending the bulk of his time
with the Syracuse Crunch in the AHL. It was only marginally better the following
season – 11 games with the Lightning and 66 with the Crunch.

In 2014-2015 he did seem to retrieve a bit of his scoring touch at the
NHL level, scoring a dozen goals for the Lightning in 50 games, but he was a
trading deadline casualty, sent to the Boston Bruins for a pair of second round
draft picks. In a season and change with the Bruins, Connolly scored nine goals
in 76 games, his career scoring line amounting to 27 goals and 59 points in 210
NHL games with two clubs. It was not the profile of a sixth-overall draft pick,
and at the end of the 2015-2016 season he became a free agent, Boston declining
to extend a qualifying offer to the player.

And that journey brought Connolly to Washington on July 1, 2016,
signing a one-year/$850,000 contract. It was perhaps the move that head coach
Barry Trotz alluded to before the unrestricted free-agent signing period began,
““We want to give some opportunity to our kids. They’ve made great progress,
and I think they’ve earned that right to challenge for spots, and I think we’re
not going to block them. I think if we do anything, we might add maybe one
forward. I think we’ll be pretty quiet.”

With the Caps more or less set among their top six forwards, and
perhaps even their top three forward lines, it was not immediately evident just
what role an offense-oriented former top prospect fallen on hard times would
play. And it did not help Connolly that he played only intermittently over the
first month, appearing in just seven of the Caps’ first 15 games, recording just
one point in the process (a goal against Calgary on October 30th), and just 17
of the Caps’ first 31 games (3-1-4, minus-1).

Starting on December 23rd, though, Connolly appeared in 49 consecutive
games and going 12-7-19, plus-21, while averaging just 10:41 per game in ice
time, for the most part on what was a solid third line for much of the season.

Still, Connolly’s ten-game splits were a bit odd.His first four splits were light on
production, a reflection of his intermittent play early on and settling into a
role once he stuck in the lineup.His
pace picked up measurably in his fifth, sixth, and seventh splits over which he
was 10-5-15, plus-17, over 30 games.But
he went almost silent in his last split of the season in which he dressed for
10 of the last 12 games (0-2-2, minus-1).

He still had good possession numbers overall, finishing third among
Caps forwards playing in at least 25 games with a 53.92 percent Corsi-for at
5-on-5 (numbers from Corsica.hockey).When
teamed with Lars Eller and Andre Burakovsky on the third line, he and his
cohorts had the third-best Corsi-for at fives on the club (58.57 percent).

Fearless’ Take… That secondary scoring certainly comes in handy.
Washington was 12-1-2 in the 15 games in which Connolly scored a goal this
season, 16-1-2 in games in which he recorded a point. He was also consistent at
home and on the road. At Verizon Center he was 7-5-12, plus-10, in 32 games,
while on the road he was 8-3-11, plus-10, in 34 games.

Cheerless’ Take… Connolly seems to suffer from that weird Jason Chimera
Syndrome thing. You know, the one where he’s hot one year, cold the next, then
hot, then cold. With Chimera it was his goal totals. With Connolly it’s his
shooting percentages… 4.3, 10.0 (ok, in only five games), 8.3 (alright, in only
11 games), 14.5, 9.5, and then 18.5 percent with the Caps this year. And more
Connolly wasn’t necessarily a better thing. The Caps were 16-4-1 when he skated
less than ten minutes; they were 16-3-1 in games in which he didn’t record a
shot on goal (and he didn’t so much as record an assist in any of those games,
either).

Odd Connolly Fact… Brett Connolly was the only player in the league to
average less than 11 minutes of ice time per game and record 15 or more goals.
And that isn’t even the odd part. Among players with at least 500 minutes of
5-on-5 ice time, Connolly was 13th among 351 forwards in goals-per-60 minutes
(1.28; numbers from Corsica.hockey).

Game to remember… February 1st vs. Boston

Brett Connolly had one shot against his former team this season,
figuratively (the only game against the Bruins for which he dressed) and
literally (he recorded one shot on goal).The Caps took a 2-0 lead at Verizon Center before the game was 15
minutes old, but Boston tied the contest on a pair of goals by Brad Marchand
wrapped around the first intermission.Alex Ovechkin broke the tie in the last minute of the second period, but
the outcome was still in doubt as the third period started.In the fourth minute, Evgeny Kuznetsov skated
the puck through the neutral zone and gained the offensive zone.Pushing the Bruin defense back, he fed the
puck across to Dmitry Orlov in the middle.Orlov sent the puck ahead to Connolly darting in from the right wing,
and Connolly lifted a backhander past goalie Tuukka Rask as he was cutting
across the top of the crease.It was the
game-winning goal – his only such goal on home ice this season – in the Caps’
5-3 win.

Game to forget… March 4th vs. Philadelphia

If you are not a penalty killer, and your teammates are taking a lot of
penalties, you are going to spend a lot of time watching a game, not playing
it.Such was the case on March 4th
when the Philadelphia Flyers visited Verizon Center.Brett Connolly skated five shifts in the
first period for 3:01 in ice time.But
when the Caps took two penalties in each of the last two periods tow give the
Flyers four power plays after giving the Flyers a pair of man advantages in the
first period.Philadelphia did not
convert any of the power play chances, but Connolly skated just five shifts
combined over the last two period and finished the game with just 6:04 in ice
time, a season low.The only mark on his
score sheet line was a shot attempt that was blocked.

Postseason: 7 games, 0-0-0, minus-2

Before the 2017 postseason, Brett Connolly had no games of playoff
experience in his career.His first
experience was odd and disappointing.Dressing for all six games of the opening round series against the
Toronto Maple Leafs, he had what amounted to two distinct series, neither of
which were productive.In the first
three games he averaged about 12 and a half minutes of ice time.He did not record a point, and he had just
four shots on goal.In the back half of
the series his ice time was cut significantly, averaging less than five and a
half minutes per game and recording only one shot on goal without a point.He dressed for Game 1 in the second round
series against the Pittsburgh Penguins, but he skated barely six minutes with
just one shot on goal.He did not dress
again in the series.

In the end…

Brett Connolly did what a player in his position had to do, to a
point.He came in on what amounted to a
low-risk, high-reward contract with the Caps that, if he performed well enough,
he could parlay into a better deal with longer term when his contract with the
Caps was up.After shaking off the
inconsistency and intermittent appearances early, he performed quite well,
displaying a high level of efficiency in the minutes he got.But it dried up late in the season, and he
(along with a lot of his bottom six forward cohort) underperformed in the
postseason.What had been a strength
where it was a weakness the previous year – the bottom six forwards – once more
became a weakness when it mattered.Brett Connolly was a part of that, and it cost him what might have been
a very high grade.

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The Washington Capitals ended the 2016-2017 as one of 12 franchises in the NHL never to win a Stanley Cup. Of that group, only the St. Louis Blues (48 seasons), Buffalo Sabres (45 seasons), and Vancouver Canucks (45 seasons) have gone longer never having won a Cup than the Capitals (41 seasons). Six teams came into the league after the Capitals entered the league in 1974-1975 and have won Stanley Cups: Colorado Rockies/New Jersey Devils (1976-1977), Edmonton Oilers (1979-1980), Quebec Nordiques/Colorado Avalanche (1979-1980), Hartford Whalers/Carolina Hurricanes (1979-1980), Tampa Bay Lightning (1992-1993), and the Anaheim Ducks (1993-1994).

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